Palin, Like Quayle, Stumped by Grade School Student
Back in 1992, Vice President Dan Quayle famously misspelled "potato" during a grade school spelling bee. Now 16 years later Alaska Governor Sarah Palin has just had her own Dan Quayle moment. Asked by a Colorado third grader what the vice president does, Palin revealed that she failed to read - or at least understand - the United States Constitution.
As ThinkProgress recounted, Palin's hot potatoe came during an interview with NBC affiliate KUSA:
Q: Brandon Garcia wants to know, "What does the Vice President do?"
PALIN: That's something that Piper would ask me!...[T]hey're in charge of the U.S. Senate so if they want to they can really get in there with the senators and make a lot of good policy changes that will make life better for Brandon and his family and his classroom.
As Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid noted, the Constitution gives the Veep no such power:
"The Vice President of the United States shall be President of the Senate, but shall have no vote, unless they be equally divided."
In Sarah Palin's defense, she may well be able to spell "Constitution," if not grasp it. In June 1992, the unfortunate Dan Quayle had no such luck.
Quayle's elementary error came while directing a grade school spelling bee. As the New York Times recounted at the time:
Then the word potato came up. Mr. Quayle instructed William to go to the board. The bespectacled lad quickly printed P-O-T-A-T-O.
"That's fine phonetically," the Vice President said, "but you're missing just a little bit."
With Mr. Quayle's coaxing, William warily added an E.
That set off rumbling from the dozens of reporters crammed into the classroom. Several of them near the back of the room sought the nearest reference, "The Rainbow Dictionary," to confirm that the standard spelling of potato is without an E.
Questioned about it later at a news conference, Mr. Quayle said he was unaware of his error.
For his part, the now 28 year old William Figueroa is more than willing to cut Quayle some slack:
"Me, personally, I think it was an innocent mistake. It was blown out of proportion by the media," he said. "They already had an image of who he was, and what I did was just another stepping stone adding to that."
As we fast forward to 2008 and Quayle's natural heir Sarah Palin, history is repeating itself. But her mistake isn't so innocent. Having herself asked in August what the vice president does and offering a frightening first response during her debate with Joe Biden, Palin's latest failed attempt to define her job description can't be overemphasized.
A mind is a terrible thing to lose.
Posted by Fester on October 22, 2008 2:42 PM